FY 2019 extra budget needs to be around 10 T. Yen: Nikai

November 19, 2019

Tokyo--Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said Tuesday the government should draw up a fiscal 2019 supplementary budget worth around 10 trillion yen in terms of project scale.

Speaking at a press conference, Nikai said that the government "can't dispel public fears unless (it compiles) a large supplementary budget" for the year through March, which will be aimed at supporting postdisaster reconstruction and boosting the economy.

"I think (the budget) needs to be at least 10 trillion yen," he said, adding that the figure is the size of the projects to be financed by the extra budget.

On the need for the budget, Nikai noted that uncertainty in the economic outlook is growing, while restoration and reconstruction efforts are under way after a series of typhoons.

Referring to aging facilities at technical colleges throughout the country, he said he hopes the government will implement measures that focus on education.

Hiroshige Seko, secretary-general of the LDP in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, said at a press conference that the supplementary budget must be large in scale.

The government should aim to draw up an extra budget "of roughly 10 trillion yen," he said.

Seko said concentrated investment in artificial intelligence research and development and measures to spread automated driving technology should be included in the supplementary budget. Jiji Press